


Ambiguity, and Other Things About Being Two Supersoldiers In Love

by die_traumerei



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Character, Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, M/M, Slice of Life, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:48:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/die_traumerei/pseuds/die_traumerei
Summary: A very wee slice-of-life, and a few moments of figuring out how to fit two people together in a way that works.





	Ambiguity, and Other Things About Being Two Supersoldiers In Love

**Author's Note:**

> I would like to say hello to the eight people who couldn't be bothered to turn off their new fic notifications, you are all heroes.
> 
> (Also I seriously thought it had been over a year and it hasn't even been a whole year, go me!)
> 
> A little amuse-bouche to warm myself up, anyway.

“Well? Are you or aren't you?” Nat asked.

Steve wondered if this was her version of tact. Maybe? This was definitely tact for superheroes, mind.

“Hmm,” he said noncommittally, and pulled his baseball cap a little lower. Why in the ever-loving fuck had they come to a bar with a TV? That was showing the evening gossip news? That was about Steve?

Ugh, fine, they had good fries with Old Bay seasoning, a thing neither he nor Nat had grown up with any way, shape or form, but had developed a deep and abiding need for. The stuff somehow _exuded_ nostalgia. And it was nice to get out of the...life-consuming exhausting treadmill that was their job? Sure, that worked.

So Steve stuffed his face and deflected until Nat just smiled and changed the subject. (Well, followed one of Steve's changes-of-subject. He'd tried a lot, but this one stuck.)

Fries and excuses done, they parted for the night – Nat uptown to her pied-a-terre, and Steve over to Brooklyn because, ew, living in midtown Manhattan was for Tony and no one else right now. Possibly ever.

“By the way,” Nat said. “If you don't want people to know, maybe don't carry your boyfriend's love note around in your wallet?”

“Huh?” Steve asked.

Nat sighed and picked his pocket, drawing out –

“Oh,” she said and narrowed her eyes at him. “I'm still right. I _know_ I'm still right.”

Steve shrugged and put the note with the pharmacy address back into his wallet, which went into his pocket. He didn't tell her that she was right, wrong, and right again all at the same time. The note  _had_ been written by Bucky. There was probably some vague affection in it, but mostly it was so Steve knew where to go if he was out and Bucky needed meds picked up and Steve was closer. And she was right one more time in that Bucky was Steve's boyfriend. Basically. Sort of? Yeah.

They had talked about this, but never actually come to a conclusion, but whatever, boyfriend worked. About as well as any word would, anyways.

So Steve retrieved his wallet with great dignity, and went to his platform while Nat went to hers, both of them with Old Bay breath and pretty sure they'd come out on top.

 

“Hi baby,” Steve called when he let himself into their apartment. “Guess what, the subway didn't break down! Also the news still doesn't know about us.”

“I'm in the bath,” came the holler back, and Steve wended his way down the narrow corridor. Some days prewar architecture could really go fuck itself, honestly.

Bucky was, as he had said, in the bathtub living his best life. The previous owners had put in some kind of fancy giant tub thing. The air nozzles had never worked and neither of them were interested in recreating the sensation of farting in the bath, but it was big enough that Bucky could sink in up to his nipples, and he only had to bend his legs a little bit. Well, a medium bit. Better than the tiny skinny freezing claw-foot tub in their old place, anyways, which was useless for anything but showers.

“Hi,” Steve said again, and leaned over to kiss Bucky. “Good day?”

“Mmmhmm. You?”

“Yep,” Steve said, plopping down on the floor next to the tub. He crossed his arms on the edge and rested his chin on them. “Nat's figured it out. Well, some of it, anyway.”

Bucky just nodded. “Well, yes. You're not subtle, dear.”

“I tried!” Steve protested. “I really did.”

Bucky patted his hand, then slipped under the water, coming up once he was nice and warm again. His hair, cropped short again, stuck to his skull. Steve reflected that Bucky had an awfully big head, even without long hair floofing out around his face. Well, so be it, Steve had a pretty big head too, when you came down to it. Or maybe just really hard?

“You're shit at hiding things, and it's only because you're also naturally as secretive as a cat that we've made it this far,” Bucky reassured him. “And anyway, it's not like we're _hiding_. We're just not sharing willy-nilly.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Steve said, and grinned. “It's easy now to hide in plain sight, I guess.”

“It always was, you just never had anything worth hiding,” Bucky pointed out, and kissed his forehead. “Grab my robe, will you? Thanks, love.” He extracted himself from the cooling bathwater, pulled the drain plug, and permitted Steve to help him into the big terrycloth robe with his initials embroidered on the back. It had been a very dumb Hanukkah present and Steve was still very pleased with himself.

He took the moment to revel in touching Bucky's body, carefully keeping his hands ligh and nonsexual. They'd talked about all of this for far longer than it was a real thing. No, he corrected himself – a named thing. It was always real, and always there, but now they had given it reality and named it and they were dating. Living together. Boyfriends. Whatever.

Bucky went in for a hug easy, and Steve was ready for it. He didn't always like touching or being touched, but today was good, and Bucky was warm and smelled nice.

They kissed again, briefly, before Steve left him to get dressed. Bucky had got himself dinner but Steve was hungry again, so he heated up some leftover fried chicken and a slice of pie and settled down at their kitchen table.

Bucky joined him to steal a bite of drumstick and of pie – pumpkin, from the fancy grocery store – and play on his phone while their knees touched under the table.

“Maybe we should get something bigger than a cafe table?” Steve mused, in between savoring the thigh that Bucky had _not_ gotten a bit of thank you very much.

“I play footsie with you and you wanna buy bigger furniture?” Bucky said, sounding wounded.

“Yes,” Steve said blandly, and winked at him. “I mean, someday. And then you can sit next to me and play footsie.”

“You fuckin' wish,” Bucky observed.

Steve was smugly quiet because Bucky's foot lay against his, still now, warm through Steve's sock. They didn't always meet on the same wavelength like this, and he rather liked it when they did. 

“You're doing good tonight,” Bucky said, because they'd tried tact and it super, super had not worked.

“Uh huh,” Steve agreed. “And you're all cuddly.” 

Bucky laughed and reached across the table, touching Steve's arm. “I  _like_ cuddling,” he reminded Steve. “You, especially.”

“I'm gonna get you one of those boyfriend pillows for your birthday,” Steve idly threatened, but he moved so he could slip his hand into Bucky's. He even wiped it on a napkin first, because he was awesome like that.

Bucky seemed awfully taken with this idea, so as soon as he's done eating, Steve quickmarched them into the living room to make use of the frankly stupid-huge sofa they bought when they moved in. It does fit them both – just – and Steve was quietly pleased he could give Bucky this.

“We still meet in the middle,” Bucky says softly, but there's a question to it too.

“We do,” Steve agrees. “Yeah, baby, we do. Even when we don't, we do.” As soon as he said it, he flushed – that didn't make _sense_.

But Bucky, clear-eyed and practically psychic when it came to Steve, just nodded. “Yeah. I get it.” He smiled and kissed Steve. “We don't need sex. And we don't need touch, when you don't wanna.”

Steve nodded. Bucky swore up, down and sideways he'd always been asexual, even before all the Hydra bullshit, but Steve also  _knew_ Bucky wasn't a virgin and he had opted to be very mature and very adult and admit that he was jealous of those girls. It was another thing they'd worked through – were working through. It meant he didn't care so much when he couldn't stand to be touched and Bucky was lonely as hell and frustrated about it. It was probably not the best part about him, but he was honest about that, too.

(“I get it,” Bucky had said, when Steve had told him, and that was that.)

“You ever think we just got in the habit of loving?” Steve asked suddenly.

“Yes,” Bucky replied promptly. “No. Both.”

“Well, that's helpful,” Steve said.

“No, I mean it,” Bucky tried to explain. “I think we did – we do – love out of habit. I loved you pretty well my whole darn life, you don't break a habit like that easy. But we work at it too.” He pinched Steve. “Like we are now. So yes. And no.”

“Fair enough,” Steve agreed. Yes and no, the two of them. Yes to love and no to easy pretending that wouldn't get them anywhere. Yes to touch and loving, no to sex, and sometimes no to the touch but never the loving. Steve had not previously considered his life ambiguous – he was stark contrast where Bucky was the midtones – but here they were.

 

 


End file.
